The Last
by Warwolf
Summary: Seven centuries after a chance encounter, The Unicorn once known as Amalthia shares her thoughts on a certain mutant lizard.


**_The Last_**

by Warwolf   


Disclaimer: I own none of the characters in this story. They belong to Peter S. Beagle and Toho Co. Ltd., respectively,   


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Years...countless years, have passed.   
And yet, each and every day I see it...see _HIM_, I am filled with an awe and wonder that other animals once looked at me with.   
I can remember as far back as to the days of my lost love, Prince Lear, and yet even Lear somehow pales before this creature. This being born through the magic man has come to call science. 

It was as ordinary a day as any other. I had walked among mankind for centuries. The last parting gift of the magician Schmendrick, the ability to shift back and forth between human and my natural form. A gift I was able to pass on to others, be they my own people or not. I had made my way to the city mankind called New York.   
I still went by the name Amalthia in my human guise. Perhaps a last parting tribute to the kind wizard who had first given the name to me. The city had changed since my last visit, back during the days of the colonies, and I suppose it was foolish of me to think it would be otherwise. After all, I may be eternally young, even in human form, but mankind was not. They were ever changing. Ever growing and becoming more than they had been.   
I had heard stories as I passed down the streets. Urban legends, as they are called these days, of a being more powerful than any who had existed in the age of magic.   
_Absurd,_ I had scoffed. For what magical creature could be more powerful than my people? We had hidden ourselves among humanity for eons since the time of the Red Bull's defeat. The tales spoke of this being as though it were a king. A king who called the waves his home, and who protected New York with a fierceness that rivaled the sheer rage and power of the Red Bull and myself during our battle at the sea's edge.   
Again I scoffed at the urban legends. But I suppose curiosity killed the Unicorn as much as the cat, for I found myself headed to that place called Staten Island, near the home of those humans whom had seemingly TAMED this great beast. Of course, I did not get quite that far. I was in the place now called Times Square when an enormous being, Crusteaceous Rex, I later learned was his name, had begun an assault on the city. More than once in a desperate attempt to get away from the carage and change to my true self, that I might drive the monster off did I nearly wind up dead. It was upon my fifth near miss that I heard a sound unlike any I'd ever heard before, coming from a small yellow machine, pointed out towards the bay. A massive dome of water began to rise upwards, and within moments, I found myself staring at a wall of red, and for a moment, I almost had a heart attack, fearing that my adverary, the Red Bull had come back from the dead to claim my life. Yet red gave way to greenish gold, to red, and then to a bright green-gray, as the eye, for that was what it was, gave way to a massive head, and an even more powerful frame.   
People who had once been panicking, running for their lives, now began cheering wildly, and I realized that _this_ must have been the great sea-faring King that the legends spoke of. And then, I began to make out a name, chanted by the people of New York, as the great beast made it's way onto the land. 

  
"Godzilla! GODZILLA! **_GODZILLA!_**"

I will never forget that day. Godzilla was a magnificent beast. And though he was certainly never intended to be, his body had a grace and beauty to it as sleek and shining as _any_ Unicorn's. He drove off the invader, and I was quickly introduced to Team H.E.A.T., who had begun working to help the people who'd seen the fight and those who'd been injured or trapped underneath the rubble of Rex's initial strike.   
It was through them that I learned of the origin of, as Randy Ortiz called him, "The Lizard King". Of the arrival of the first Godzilla, of the battle to save New York from being overrun by his offspring, and of the one surviving Godzilla, who now portected this city, and the world itself, as thoigh it was his territory. His _kingdom_.   
  
Strange as it might sound, I felt a kinship with the mutant. centuries ago, I had been the last of my kind. No longer is this the case, of course. Many Unicorns have since found human mates or mates among our own kind. But Godzilla would never know the comfort of his own people. He had in fact, been forced to destroy the father who, at one point resurrected as a cyborg, had given birth to him, and no adoptive human father could replace the true link between a father and son of the same species.   
Perhaps that is why I've stayed here so long, and watched over him. Seven centuries have passed since that first encounter. No one knows how long the creature will live, but I have tended his wounds for the last seven hundred years, and at the same time, prevented him from aging. Perhaps one day, another Godzilla will be born, after all, humankind may be the dominant life form of the planet, but I do not believe that every egg was destroyed. If one survived, so may have others. It may take centuries, or millenia, or even eons. But I believe a Godzilla will be born, with the ability to reproduce, as his bretheren did, without need for a mate.   
Then, I can truly feel peace and know that I have kept The Last from dying before he could know his people. 

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Okay, I have NO idea what inspired this. I just thought it up ealier today, so SUE me! I just hadda write it down. Enjoy. Or don't see if I care. ^.^;; Reviews are appreciated, be they good or bad. 


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